Archive for the ‘Randy Brennan’ tag

I just finished reading backfire in the June Motor News.The first letter was about the auction coverage and at how upset Bob Sandkraut was with it. A few minutes later I’m reading through the auction section (McCormick Palm Springs) by Jeff Koch. When I got to the ’51 De Soto I had to read the review twice just to make sure I read it right. The last line “A clean presentation for a desperately unspecial car: Short of grandma having one like it when you were a kid,there’s little compelling reason for it’s existense.” I own two four door sedans that are restored and I’m sure this Koch guy would say the same about them too. My ’50 Pontiac and ’64 Galaxie four door sedans. I have also been upset with your aution reviews. If this is the way you think about the old car hobby I think I’ll let my subscription run out.

Randy Brennan, Grand Rapids, Minnesota

Seems that the letter, and more like it, have been whipping ’round the Hemmings office over the past couple of weeks. I dare say that hurt reactions like these, while not uncommon, might be missing the point slightly.

At an auction, all of my comments are about the condition of the car, and any other comments are relative to the bottom line. Unmeasurable intangibles like the pleasure that someone will get from owning an old car are simply not part of the equation. American cars of this era are simply not bringing large money unless they have V-8s, cloth roofs or wood bodies. On the one hand, if someone wants an old car, just to have an old car or get into the hobby, then something cheap like this is the way to do it. However, they shouldn’t walk in with any illusions: If you pay $4,000 for a $5,000 car, and sink $3,000 in repairs into it, it’s still a $5,000 car. If you buy it, you’d better love it, because you’re not going to get your money back out of it anytime soon.

When I’m writing about cars at auction, and grading them, my words and ratings have nothing to do whether I like them or not. I care not whether a car has two doors or four, or who makes it – De Soto, Fiat, Isuzu, I really don’t care. Listen, I voluntarily owned and drove a Mercury Montego for nearly a decade, I’ve got no problem with someone following their muse and going for a car that they like, for whatever reason. The grading is all about the condition of the car as it sits before me, period. But when you lump together a dead, low-prestige marque (sorry, but De Soto is not Packard or Pierce-Arrow), the least-desirable body style of the bunch (four-door), and an era where interest isn’t high, and you’re going to have a car that’s not worth a lot of money.

Communicating all of that in roughly 100 words is easier said than done, and apparently I’ve failed at this task.